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Friday, October 9, 2009

I saw a juror list in the local newspaper. It had their profiles, but not their names. I was disappointed to see that most of his jurors were direct or indirect State employees. There was a teacher, a court clerk, a lawyer, and other Statist jobs. That's a bad sign if I'm the victim in a criminal trial. If I were victim in a criminal trial, I'd want as few State employees as possible serving as jurors. It's a problem, because most people are partially dependent on the State for their livelihood. Freedom-minded individuals usually get filtered out of the jury selection process.

If you're a State employee and work as a juror, you get full salary and benefits during the trial. A State employer won't hold it against you if you don't produce anything for 1-2 months. If I get stuck on a jury for a month or two, my startup employer would be hurt.

Discussion of the three previous mistrials, Castel said, would be off limits because this might cause the jury to ask "what is going on? Will we be able to do better? Why are they going after this man?"

"You're not to refer to the fact that Mr Gotti was a defendant in prior proceedings unless you get a different ruling from me," Castel instructed Carnesi.

Notice the media bias. The article says "The judge is doing a good job by preventing the defense lawyer from mentioning previous mistrials." Instead, the article could have said "That ***hole judge is preventing the defense from mentioning three previous mistrials!"

If you've previously been the victim in a mistrial, you're barred from mentioning that fact at your re-trial. Superficially, you would say "That prejudices the jury." However, the fact that a previous jury was hung is evidence that the charges are flimsy. Plus, why are State prosecutors so determined to go after someone who had several previous mistrials? That suggests a politically-motivated prosecution.

What right do the State police have to steal from me via taxes, and use the profits to harass John Gotti?

"This bit of information would bias the jury!" usually means "This bit of information would make the jury favor the defendant!" The rules for what evidence is excluded almost always favors the prosecutor. Why should the defense ever be barred from mentioning evidence? For example, if you're prosecuted for illegal possession of a gun, you're barred from mentioning that you were previously robbed.

If I were victim in a re-trial, I'd mention that fact to the jury over the objections of the judge. I'd probably be jailed for contempt of court. That's irrelevant, because I'll be jailed anyway if I'm falsely convicted. A lawyer cannot disobey the judge, lest he forfeit his law license. What is the judge going to do? Prevent me from speaking to the jury at my own trial?

In a trial, the only person who has a personal stake in the outcome is the defendant. The judge and prosecutor get to keep their cushy jobs, whether the defendant is convicted or acquitted.

Why should a judge care if a defendant goes to jail or not? Does a judge get evaluated based on the number of people he sends to jail? Why would a State judge be so eager to favor the prosecutor over the defendant? The State is a bunch of thugs supporting each other, rather than a defender of freedom.

Prosecutors are expected to rely heavily on former Gotti allies turned informants to support the 26-page indictment, in which Gotti is described as a committed Gambino family member and successor to his late father.

In a trial, the State prosecutors will coerce your former associates into testifying against you. The "allies turned informants" probably were coerced via a plea-bargain. If you plea-bargain and agree to testify, you might get a short jail term or no jail term. If you refuse to plea-bargain, then you might spend the rest of your life in jail. The incentive is to accept a plea-bargain.

There's been a lot of media speculation of "Jurors will be afraid to serve, because of violent retaliation by Gotti."

As an agorist, that's exactly the wrong approach. Instead of coercing jurors into convicting, a good agorist DRO would bribe jurors to vote "not guilty"!

Of course, the mainstream media won't advertise "Jurors might be bribed into acquitting." Instead, they'll say "Jurors are coerced into voting not guilty."

If I were running an agorist DRO, I'd arrange for someone to promise the jurors "I'll give you 20 ounces of gold if you vote 'not guilty', or hold out to acquit and get a hung jury." If possible, you could advertise the fact before the trial. If necessary, you mention it to jurors during the trial. You wouldn't be able to do it when court is in session, but you probably could do it during a bathroom break. It would work if the DRO had a trustworthy reputation. Such a policy would give other agorists an incentive to try and get on the jury, so they can vote to acquit.

Is it immoral to reward jurors for behaving honestly? If it really is a frivolous criminal charge, it isn't immoral to encourage and reward honest behavior. The State prosecutors are wasting a lot of money pursuing an innocent victim. The only issue is "You would go to jail if caught." and not "Is it immoral?"

I read that Gotti is held without bail until the trial is over. That seems a bit severe, considering there were several previous mistrials. Even if acquitted, he is not reimbursed for the time wasted while in jail.

I was trying to figure out what Gotti is charged with. This bit was interesting.

Curtis Sliwa organized a vigilante police group, criticizing the State police monopoly. Allegedly, Gotti attempted to murder him. This makes Gotti seem like he was really working for the State! Maybe Gotti is someone like Osama bin Laden, who used to work for the US government but then became inconvenient and had to be eliminated? Someone else could have organized the assassination attempt and then framed Gotti. This murder isn't the issue in the latest trial.

The more I read the mainstream media propaganda trashing Gotti, the more I become sympathetic to him as a victim. I don't know any reliable source of details. Selling drugs and prostitution are not crimes, but murder is a real crime. If you're working in the counter-economy, you're shut out of the State dispute resolution process. Murder or ostracism are the only options when you have a disagreement with someone.

Another problem is that "organized crime" follows the State model for organizing a business. "Organized crime" seeks a territorial monopoly, rather than having multiple competing vendors. "Organized crime" usually relies on bribing State agents to look the other way. This uses the State police gang to stile competition! If I were running a marijuana business, and had bribed policemen, then I *WANT* the police to arrest my competitors! In a really free market, businesses would not seek a territorial monopoly, nor would they be able to achieve a territorial monopoly. Given "State police arrest my competitors", then the State encourages violent behavior among people working in the counter-economy. The State encourages drug dealers to seek a territorial monopoly, because they rely on the State to crush competition.

Based on the media fnords I'm seeing, Gotti looks like the victim. It's promising that someone like Gotti can evade prosecution by the State. A good agorist DRO should be able to do just as well, or better! On the other hand, Gotti was forced to spend a lot of time and money protecting himself from State violence, and there's no guarantee he will win.

As an agorist, the goal is to avoid a confrontation with professional terrorists. Once you're their prisoner, you should use every possible tactic to achieve freedom. If there are enough working agorists, then it will become impossible for the State prosecutors to convict an agorist of a crime.

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My Favorite Links

Here is a collection of my favorite links.

Personal Finance

For personal finance, my most frequently visited site is Yahoo Finance. Yahoo Finance has the best system for watching your stock quotes during the day. I also like the Motley Fool. Both of these websites encourage you to do independent thinking about finance.

My favorite discount online broker is Vanguard. They are not the cheapest commission-wise, but their customer service has been excellent. Plus, they give a high credit interest rate on the cash portion of your account.

Mises, Rothbard, and Austrian Economics

The school of "Austrian Economics" advocates credit-based money instead of debt-based money. There are two separate websites, www.mises.org and www.mises.net. These philosophies are a precursor to agorism. However, they still hold out false hope that the people who control the government can be convinced to switch to a fair monetary system. They fall short of the correct conclusion that government itself is the problem.

The Mises and Austrian school is still a pro-State theory of economics. They say "government should adopt a sound monetary policy instead of an unsound monetary policy". They fall short of the truth, which is "Who needs a government?"

Agorism and Anarcho-Capitalism

The primary source most commonly cited is agorism.info. Agorism.info has good introductory material, but I'm already looking for more advanced topics. I also found TOLFA interesting. The Molinari Institute has a lot of interesting links.

The source with the most advanced material on agorism is Kevin Carson's The Mutualist Blog.

This link on the History of Money has a lot of interesting bits on how bankers have controlled the world's money supply for hundreds of years or longer. Unlike most other sources, it is very short and to the point. However, their recommended solution falls short of true agorism.

Freedomain is another good read. He doesn't update his blog often, but he has a lot of good stuff posted in the past.

Kevin Carson's Mutualist Blog - This is a great source. He is tough to read at times, but his content is great. He's the best source on agorism I've seen. I like to take his topics and present them in simpler language. He updates his blog sporadically, but he has a lot of great content. It's also worth reading his other books and articles, which are available from his mutualist.org website. I also like the way Kevin Carson frequently links back to his favorite older posts. Kevin Carson's Shared Items is also worth reading; it's a list of posts from other blogs that he finds interesting.

Kung-Fu Monkey. This blog is written by someone who works as a writer in the entertainment industry, which explains the high quality of writing. He sounds like a closet agorist, although he hasn't specifically mentioned that philosophy. This post on the Extrapolated Everyday Bull**** Comparison has promoted Kung-Fu Monkey from my hitlist to my "read regularly" list.

Redpillguy's Blog - His blog is relatively new, so it's hard to judge. He doesn't really update his blog that often. On the other hand, he frequently cites my content, and that's certainly the sort of thing I appreciate.

Tranarchism is another new blog. It's too soon to judge the content. On the other hand, anyone who heavily cites my stuff can't be all bad. It's too infrequently updated.

Wally Conger's Blog is another good read. However, he really has two separate blogs mixed together. He has a lot of good stuff on agorism and libertarianism. However, he also likes to talk about his favorite movies and TV shows a lot.

Blog HitlistThere are blogs I'm currently evaluating to see if they're worth a regular read. I currently manage my hitlist through Google Reader.

Honorable Mention

These blogs have some interesting content, but they don't make it into my regular reading rotation. If they improved their content or improved their posting frequency, then they would be in my regular reading list. I check back occasionally, and on a slow day I might read them.

Bill Rempel - He talks about finance and trading. He really dislikes the Federal Reserve. I'm not sure if he's come all the way to agorism yet, but perhaps he can be coaxed. He's guilty of my #1 blog pet peeve: A PARTIAL RSS FEED!

Bored Zhwazi - Has some nice content, but it really isn't updated that often. It's worth checking back once every month or two.